Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater revealed that Marvel Studios encouraged the upcoming Disney+ series' production team to go beyond the PG-13 limits of violence and horror.
While speaking to Variety, Slater was asked how the aforementioned team decided how far to push the envelope on violence when it came to Moon Knight. "It was always a bit of a balancing act," Slater began, "because right from the beginning, I sort of came in and a lot of my references...I kind of came in and said, 'Look, people are sort of expecting Batman in a white palette swap, sort of beating up muggers in an alley.' And you can definitely do that version of Moon Knight. But to me, it was sort of the least interesting version, because we've seen it so many times."
Slater added that he wanted to "bring some horror" and "some scary monsters" into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and "really sort of push that envelope as far as we could." He also said that both Marvel Studios President/Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios were supportive of the idea, with Feige pushing the production team to "just tell the best story" and not worry about pulling their punches. Slater concluded by revealing that he thinks Moon Knight is "definitely still appropriate for all ages," which was important to the team, later going on to say, "But I was like, 'But let's get as PG-13 as we possibly can. Like, let's give people some goosebumps, let's have some violence in there that you may have never seen before in an MCU thing.' And Marvel was so supportive of that, they were so cool about it."
Moon Knight's level of violence was a subject Kevin Feige discussed earlier this year, commenting, "There are moments [in the series] when Moon Knight is wailing on another character, and it is loud and brutal, and the knee-jerk reaction is, 'We're gonna pull back on this, right?' No. We're not pulling back. There's a tonal shift. This is a different thing. This is Moon Knight."
Outside of said violence, executive producer Grant Curtis recently teased that the Fist of Khonshu's show has no ties to the larger MCU despite being a part of the franchise. "There's no attachment to the current MCU," Curtis remarked. "[Moon Knight's] brand-new, and he is going on a brand-new adventure. We really think the fans are going to enjoy it." Interestingly, it was this disconnection from the shared universe that caught the eyes of lead actors Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, who respectively play Moon Knight and Arthur Harrow.
Moon Knight arrives on Disney+ on March 30.
Source: Twitter